Jazz piano: improving voicings

Question

I run into these two problems related to chords:

1. My accompany with my left hand conflicts/try to occupy the same tones as my right hand, melody.

2. My voicings are boring and dull. Very standardised and little variety. But, the simplicity means I can get through a standard, roughly.

I wonder, how do I solve this?

Theoretically it’s easy — the chord tones are known and it’s just about picking different voicings. However, that’s a daunting task, and maybe it’s about breaking it down. Should I get Levine’s classic The Jazz Piano Book? Maybe I’m looking for a path that is constructive, pedagogical and doesn’t involve reinventing the wheel.

I would like flexibility, choice from a large library of voicings. And in the future, creative improvisation stemming from it.

Some pianists on Youtube have hand positions that are very broad, like 6 or 7 tones distance in each hand. Maybe this is a hint to how to make it more interesting.

Answer 1

Hard to give advice if you are not telling us what voicings you are currently playing.

Practice first your shell voicings: 1 3 7 and 1 7 3. (Low to high). As you stitch chords together try to limit big jumps in the top note. Use your ears and break the rules if it sounds OK to you.

So first 4 chords of “all the things you are” (Fm7, Bbm7, Eb7, AbM7, ...) becomes: F Eb Ab, Bb Db Ab, Eb Db G, Ab C G, ... Or F Ab Eb, Bb Ab Db, Eb G Db, Ab G C, ...

Then try rootless: 3 7 9 or 7 3 6. Again, favor the voice leadings with limited jumps.

A bit more rich rootless left hand voicings are 3 5 7 9 or 7 9 3 6. So a Gm7 C7 FM7 becomes: Bb D F A, Bb D E A, A C E G.

Another trick is to play only root with the left hand and with the right hand 3 + 7 + melody or 7+3+melody. If the melody is a 3 or 7, then you play just 3 and 7. Just make sure that the melody note is always on top.

Answer 2

I'm learning to do Chord substitutions and inversions on the guitar, but it's harder than I thought. I start with the notes in a chord, then try rearranging them to find chords that work. Like replacing a CM7 with a C6add9, or F#m7 with A6/C#.